Chain Of Rocks (Part 2)

I’m sharing some excerpts from my in-progress manuscript about Rich’s Ride. You can check out previous posts here.

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Amazing how much clarity can be gained simply from the perspective of a new day. The next morning Becky and I sat in bright sunshine at the base of that same single lane bridge. A bit of research showed that it was in fact the correct route, and it didn’t look nearly so foreboding in the morning sunlight. So we unloaded the bike, arranged a meeting on the Missouri side of the river, and I set off to finally see if the Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge was worthy of all the effort and anticipation.

Chouteau Island turned out to be a redevelopment area. What looked like a deserted, scary road last night was a re-emerging neighborhood scattered with construction projects. I was still surprised that no signs indicated my approach to what was apparently an important local tourist attraction. At least from the Illinois side nobody was going out of their way to publicize the Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge.

Finally. A small parking lot and an almost secluded entrance to one of the narrowest bridges I’d ever seen. The sign told me this was once part of the legendary American highway known as Route 66. It was difficult to imagine that this thin ribbon of pavement, now open only to cycles and pedestrians, once constituted a portion of a major thoroughfare across the US.

Besides its limited width and being nearly a mile long, the Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge is remarkable for two things. First, it’s really steep! I had to work hard to crank up the incline designed to allow sufficient clearance for river traffic. The bridge also has an unusual twenty-two degree bend partway across.

At the apex I had a great view of the river. I stopped and looked and thought a bit about what I’d noticed about the river as I traveled with it and lived with it. The river’s different that what you normally see from the bridge.

I’ve lived in the Midwest a lot of my life. I can’t imagine how many times I’ve crossed the Mississippi River without paying much attention. At freeway speeds it’s there one moment and gone the next. But when you travel along its length on a bike you have time to notice stuff. Small stuff, subtle changes, things you don’t see from the bridges. You realize that the river isn’t constant, that it’s not just a big ribbon of water. The river has a life of its own, and you can only perceive its nature by being with it for a while. Drive-by encounters won’t do.

I think dreams work like that. When you pass by someone’s dream, it’s pretty hard to understand it. There’s a lot going on that you just can’t see from the bridge at highway speed. Perhaps that’s why others’ dreams are sometimes so hard to understand. When you live with a dream, it looks a lot different than it appears on a quick fly-over. Maybe the idea that seems crazy at from the bridge at freeway speed makes more sense when you travel with it a while. Maybe we should be a bit slower to judge the worthiness of a dream when we bump into it the first time.

Becky and Monte waited for me partway across. We enjoyed splendid river views, shot some video, and chatted with a few tourists who recognized us from a news feature. The bridge is restored with 40’s and 50’s memorabilia recalling the heyday of the Route 66 era. It was fun to wonder about the adventures that crossed that bridge and imagine the dreams people chased along its narrow corridor.

The Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge was a highlight, one of the scenes I’ll always recreate when I picture the ride in my mind. It would have been easy to skip it and move on. We had miles to cover and places to go and it was just an old abandoned bridge. But I’m glad we took time to go back.

When you’re chasing a dream you need to stay focused, but you need to stay focused on the right things. This dream was never about covering miles. The Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge helped us remember that. We’re a culture of freeways and efficiency. But I saw the river more clearly sitting atop the Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge than I ever did whizzing across a freeway bridge. That’s the sort of perspective you need to follow a river—or a dream.

You need to be careful when you’re chasing a dream that you don’t run too fast. A dream is a mystical thing that may not be right where you expect it. It’s worth the time and effort to reach remarkable, out-of-the-way places. Sometimes that’s where mystical things hang out.

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